Orange Select Board calls June 29 special town meeting to close $200,000 budget gap

ATHOL — June 8, 2026 — Orange calls a special town meeting for June 29 to close a $200,000 Mahara Regional School District assessment gap. The Orange Select Board voted 5-0 Monday in a joint session with the Finance Committee to schedule the meeting for 7 p.m. at the Ruth B. Smith Auditorium after both bodies concluded that waiting until fall would force the town onto a one-twelfth monthly spending cap — limiting highway summer road work and delaying employee raises — because Orange would enter July 1 without a balanced budget. The Department of Revenue will not set the town's tax rate until the budget is balanced. Finance Committee member Kathy presented an analysis showing the gap could be closed using roughly $125,000 in free cash plus a $75,000 upward revision to the school-choice-out state-aid estimate, with stabilization as a backstop; the Finance Committee's full reserve fund allocation for FY26 was just $36,000, leaving only $3,000 available per month under a one-twelfth scenario. The Finance Committee tabled line-to-line transfers to its June 22 meeting pending confirmation that source accounts are solvent, and will use that session to recommend the specific funding source for the $200,000 to the Select Board.